Line and Wash (again)

It's been a while, so I don't mind reminding you about something. I don't get colour. It's one of the things which really frustrates me. It's not like monochrome. I get monochrome, which may well be why I like sketching so much. I'm not trying to brag, but when I make an ink, or pencil drawing, or a monochrome painting even, it usually turns out pretty much how I intended it to. As I said, I'm no genius, no expert, no professional, but I largely know how to get close to what I want in a sketch. Not so painting.

I haven't done an acrylic painting for a year, but I'd say that I have improved over the years. Compare this, my first ever acrylic painting made in 2015:-

with this, one of three Acrylic paintings made in 2021:-

I'm still very much a work in progress with acrylic, but I think it's not unreasonable to say I'm getting better. Sadly the Afan Nedd Artist's group has folded , and that's where I made the majority of my acrylics. 

With watercolour it is a different story. I don't seem to get any better. And the fact is I would really, really love to be able to produce line and wash - ink and watercolour - sketches to be proud of. I recently bought a book, "Line and Wash" Painting by Liz Chaderton. You can find it on Amazon if you click the link

Line and Wash Painting by Liz Chaderton

Using the good advice in the book, I'm trying to overhaul what passes for my technique, and start all over again.

My results have been mixed. First there was this picture of Covent Garden Tube station

It's okay. . . but, well it just doesn't look the way I wanted it to look. I had another go with Southgate Tube station this time:-

Now, I'm sure you can see part of the problem I had with this one. I used a fineliner with soluble ink. It's not a disaster, but not to be recommended. Whereas I thought the Covent Garden sketch was too busy, and could have been more simplified, I felt this one is better on that score, but the colours, with the exception of the sky, are washed out. To some extent you can blame my scanner, which hates blues, hence the grey shadow beneath the apron which is more purpley-blue on the original. I applied a lot of ink again once it was dry, and  I think this is a bit overdone. 

So this morning I made this picture of a narrow steep street in Malta. I began with a far more minimalist ink sketch than I'd normally start with:-

That was one lesson that I wanted to put into practice. Another was not to worry too much about trying to paint in details, but to paint in moods. I started with light areas, and remembered to allow them to dry before adding darker areas. Here's the finished picture

Valletta

It's better. It's not as good as I want to paint, but I think it might just be a step in the right direction. I think the combination of colours on the steps where it's in shadow work nicely. I think on a similar painting in future I could go even stronger on the contrast between lights and darks. To be fair, the scanner didn't pick out the blue of the sky quite as blue as it is. 

The next thing will be to be able to apply these tips on a scene where it's not all or mostly warm colours like this.

Sorry, where was I?

 Well, catching up on the last few months, I've been busy. Art wise I kept up the Sketching Everyday challenges through October and November, but through December I had less and less time, what with resurrecting my quiz career on a strictly part time basis, and running the Etsy store. I wouldn't say it was exactly a roaring trade, but in the lead up to Christmas the prints were certainly shifting.

Just after Christmas I finished my challenge to sketch all of the London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway stations, which I've been doing off and on for the last couple of years. Finishing meant that I had to face an uncomfortable fact. The Overground sketches and the DLR sketches were just much, much better than the Underground ones. Don't take my word for it, compare them for yourself:-

This is a sketch of a station on the London Overground

This is Canary Wharf station on the DLR

Original sketch of Ruislip Manor

I'm sure that you can see what I mean. The Ruislip Manor sketch is not a bad sketch as such, but it's not as good as what came after with the Overground and the DLR. A close look shows why. The later sketches are as complete as I can make them, the Ruislip Manor one isn't. The building lacks detail and shading, and there's little in the foreground or background to give the building context. Now, I could have said - so what? - and left the underground sketches as they were. No I couldn't. So I made up my mind to make another 30 Underground sketches, and replace selected stations with them to improve the quality of the whole. So for Ruislip Manor, I made this one: - 

It's of comparable quality to the Overground and DLR sketches. While I was working on the new sketches, it occurred to me that in a lot of cases, I could actually improve the originals, and get them towards the standard I wanted. At first I tried to do this directly onto the digital images uses the basic Paint programme on my lap top. I did about 20 this way, like this one: -

That's not bad for the detailing of the brickwork and roof tiling. However it is too fiddly when it comes to adding foreground and background details. So then I decided to root out the original sketches, and draw the improvements directly onto them. For the majority the results were pretty good. Compare this original sketch: - 

with the improved version here - 

When you look at the two - which are the same sketch - it's remarkable the difference detailing, and putting the building in context with foreground and background, can make. I improved the majority of sketches this way. 

I had a problem with some of the sketches when I couldn't find the originals. In these cases I had to print off the digital versions, and then improve them by hand. Here's an example:-

It was a decent sketch to begin with, but I think it's better for the work I did on the printed version. Of course, there were sketches that I couldn't improve. For example, this sketch of King's Cross just wasn't good enough. I didn't even have the original, and I just didn't feel I could get it up to standard.

So I cut my losses, and made this brand new sketch

Likewise there were a few others where I'd done silly things like filling in windows and doorways completely black. The largest number I had to do came from either end of the Central Line, where I'd used terrible paper, which scans grey, for example:-

It didn't matter how much I improved the building and how much context I gave it, that horrible grey would still be there. So I made new sketches of each of them like this: -

In the end I made over 40 new sketches. For the sake of variety, I did make a couple of them line and wash pictures. For example, this is Covent Garden: - 

Snot too bad, neither. It doesn't fit with the sketches though. Or at least, it doesn't till you scan it greyscale:-

I love the greyscale version, I have to say.

So there we are, the Underground, Overground and DLR all complete.

Which begs the question, what do I do with them now, and what next?

Drawing the Ford Anglia - Instructions and photos

 

If you’ve come to the blog following the link on Youtube, then thanks for coming. I’m going to show you how I made my Ford Anglia picture, and I hope you’ll be able to follow it, and make your own picture. If you do, I’d love it if you’d post a picture of yours in the comments box with this post.

So – the details. I made the painting on a piece of A$ paper from a Reeves watercolour sketchbook. You can use any sketchbook you like, but a thicker, specifically for watercolour paper does take the paint better. The thinner your paper, the worse it will react when you apply paint.

When I sketch a vehicle like this where I’m playing with proportion I’d do it in pencil first. However pencil marks look very faint when I scan them, so for the purposes of these instructions I went straight in with a 0.1mm ink pen. Any brand you like will work.

1) So, When I sketch a vehicle I always want to show off its ‘face’ – it’s front end, and as a rough rule of thumb this normally puts the headlight closest to the viewer close to the centre of your piece of paper, but not quite halfway up. If you look closely – and there’s nothing that will help your drawing so much as learning to really look closely at things – if you look closely you can see that the circle of the light itself isn’t actually a circle. It’s a bit taller than it’s wide. Also there’s a wider semi circle which goes about two thirds around it’s length. Look closely and you’ll see where it rejoins the main part of the light.

2) The car we’re drawing, the Ford Anglia, has a very distinctive ‘face’. We’re going to make the first line of the radiator grille. Can you see that we start just underneath the headlight. The line goes gently diagonally down, then when you’re just past the headlight, curve more steeply downwards, just as I’ve done above.

When I sketch, I’m always looking back to the photographs I use for reference, checking whether the distances I’ve got between my lines look like the photographs. To this extent, I draw with my eyes as much as my hand. Keep checking distances, keep checking the angles of your curves and diagonals. I don’t mean you should be taking a ruler or a protractor to it, btu keep asking yourself – does it look right? You’ll get better and better at doing this with practice.

3) I’ve always thought that the headlights and radiator grille of the Anglia give it something of the appearance of a frog. We’re going to curve the line round and start drawing the bottom of the ‘mouth’, the radiator grille. Visualise a pair of tweezers. At the end, the two arms splay out away from each other slightly. Well, this is what your bottom line should do.It should slant upwards slightly less than the top line. Look at the distance between the left hand side of the headlight, and the end of the radiator on the right. That’s just about the distance you want to extend the top radiator line to the left, and then you can extend the bottom one that far as well. We’re only going that far now, because the radiator curved differently from the middle.

4) Now we have to put your skills to the test. We’re going to make the second headlight. Estimate the distance from the end of the radiator to the edge of the headlight. Now work from the left hand top edge of the radiator, and that distance you estimated, put a little dot. That’s where ethe bottom of the oval of your second light should start. Remember, it will be noticeably a bit smaller than the first, because it’s further away. Also, it’s proportionately a little thinner than the first. Then don’t forget the little semi-circle on the right hand side of the lamp. There, how did you do?

Whatever you do at this stage, don’t give up if you think it doesn’t look right. It’s very hard to tell how a drawing will turn out just from your first few lines. Have faith, and keep going – it will turn out a lot better than you think. Well done!

5) With this next stage you should really start to see what I mean when I say it’s like a frog face. Now, we’re going to extend the top line of the radiator. Take it easy now, it hardly goes downwards at all until it’s under the centre of the headlight, then you can curve it downwards, until it’s just past the headlight.

6) Now join the frog mouth – sorry – radiator up. Take the bottom line up from the middle, so that it is tapering towards the top line. When you get just past the headlight, curve the line upwards to join the top. Now make those two little curved marks extending from the ends of the radiator – curving out just a little further. These are where we’re going to start the bumpers.

7) In the bumper of a Ford Anglia there’s a recess where the top of the number plate (license plate)  sits. Now, judge about half the distance between the headlight and the centre of the radiator. Put a little dot slightly at that distance along the radiator, but a bit underneath it. Do the same the other side of the centre. Join these dots up with a line – you an uses a straight one if you like, because it’s for the plate, but mine is slightly curved. Just make those two small marks either side where the number plate will sit.

8) Now, going from the curved marks we made at the ends of the radiator, take those, and gentle curve them away from the radiator, to meet the recess you drew in the previous step. It’s already starting to look like the face of the car. Have faith!

9) Draw in the bottom of the number plate. It should follow the same angle as the bumper. Then draw a very gentle curve from a little bit before the end of the underside of the bumper, to the bottom left hand edge of the number plate. Do the same on the right hand side. Finally, can you see the other little mark I made here? Make a concave curve from just before the top left hand edge of the radiator, to the underside of the headlight.

10) Let’s draw the line where the bonnet (hood) ends. Draw a line from halfway up the left headlight, to hallway up the right. It should mirror the line of the top of the radiator. That elongated, flattened arrow shape below id the car badge which says ‘Anglia. It’s like a flattened arrow head or chevron. Now, can you take a point on the top of the radiator underneath the left headlight, and slant it down diagonally to the right until it touches the bottom of the radiator. Make a line which slants down right on the other side underneath the right headlight. There – you’ve made the side lights. Slightly inside the outlines of the radiator, can you draw another line, which gives us the chrome rims.

11) We’ve made a pretty good go of the front of the car. Now we’re going to start making our way backwards. Underneath the headlight on the left, can you make that curved line up to the bonnet line from last time. Then start to curve it back , ending on a slightly higher point than the right hand headlight. Now we’re going to make the nearest wheel arch. If it helps, then think of it as an upside down capital U. The top of it should be about as high as the centre of the right hand headlight. The bottom of it on the right should be slightly higher than the bottom of the bumper. You can mark these out with dotes if it helps, then faintly draw in the lines, going over it more heavily when you’re happy with the shape.

12) Draw a dot slightly above the top of the right hand headlight, and slightly to the left of the right hand headlight. This is where you’re going to draw the stalk of the mirror. Draw the mirror on top of it – you can see the shape- a distorted rectangle – but don’t panic if you don’t quite get it perfect. Remember – we are not trying to make a photograph. Now from the top of the mirror, can you make that shallow convex curving shape. This will help us draw the end of the bonnet (hood) and also the bottom of the windscreen (windshield).

13) Now, if you make a very shallow convex curve around and then down from the bottom of the shape above the mirror to the line we made to the right of the left hand headlight, then you’ve made the bonnet line. Brilliant! I bet that yours is looking more like an Anglia all the time.

14) Now make another very shallow curving line up to join the bonnet line. It should join the line just about level with where the Anglia badge starts on the left. Just past that, can you make the shape above the bonnet line?

15) The next stage is simple, but will really make your car look a lot better. Draw a line upwards from the mirror, slightly right of the centre. The line should be slanting only very slightly left from perpendicular. As a rough guide how high it should go, look at the distance between the bottom of the mirror and the top of the wheel arch. That’s about as far up again as you should go. Now, we’re going to do the other side of the windscreen on the left. Go just inside the top left corner of the shape on top of the bonnet. Slant it so that the line ends at a spot slightly before the right hand edge of the shape on the bonnet, and slightly higher than the line on the right. Now, just draw lines alongside both of the windscreen lines, since this will make the rubber seal around it.

16) Now draw a curving line to join up the top of the windscreen. It can be straighter at the left end, with a slightly more pronounced curve at the right end. We also need to start thinking about the wheels. Under the wheel arch, you’re going to draw a very tall, thin oval, the top left hand quarter of which just is slightly hidden by the bumper. When you’re drawing it, do it faintly, and try to observe how the top of the oval is further away from the wheel arch, than halfway down it. When you’re happy with the oval, draw a semi circle underneath it. Look how it flattens out and goes level to the left when it’s underneath the bottom of the oval.

17) Going from underneath the left hand headlight. Make a gently curving line downwards from the bottom of the car. Increase the curve and bring it round to make the left hand wheel. It shouldn’t reach as far down as the bottom of the wheel on the right. And that’s it! You’ve made the face of the car. We’re on the home stretch as far as the drawing is concerned.

18) We can begin sketching in the bodywork now. Look at the line I’ve drawn from the bottom of the wheel arch, rising diagonally to the right. Imagine there’s a line from the bottom of the wheell arch to the bottom of the bumper. Now extend that about as far again to the right of the wheel arch. You can make it a little steeper going upwards if you want to make it more dramatic. Not going quite as far to the right will have a similar effect. Draw another line replicating this one and the side of the wheel arch just inside them.

19) Draw a curving line from the side of the mirror, down to where the inside line of the bottom edge of the body meets the wheel arch. Draw a similar line with a similar curve from the right hand edge of the bottom line. It shouldn’t do quite up as far as the previous line. Then join them up with a line curving slightly downwards. That’s the door done.

20) Now we draw the passenger side window. Draw a line adjacent to and just to the right of the right hand side of the windscreen. Then curve it round and then draw it moving diagonally downwards – at a slightly steeper angle than the door line below, but not as far to the right. Join them up with a diagonal line slanting down to the right slightly.

21) Now for the other passenger side window, and this is something of an iconic feature on an Anglia. Think of it as a misshapen letter D. It should start curving back down to the door from less than halfway down. Then draw the line of the rear pillar, This goes diagonally down, - which means it moves away from the window you’ve just drawn – it mirrors the edge of the front passenger’s window. Then extend the door line underneath the windows down to meet the pillar you’ve just drawn.

22) You’re really close to a finish so don’t be tempted to give up now. We draw in a line. Move to the right of the centre of the headlight, to just to the right of the left hand edge of the wheel arch. Draw a line connecting the part of the doors where they start to curve inwards up to the windows, and extend the line to just past where the rear pillar ends. Extend the line underneath the windows part the rear pillar, then curve down and in to meet the other line. Now look at the bottom edge of the doors. In your mind’s eye, extend that line. Now draw a line which goes down diagonally right for a bit, then diagonally left down to meet where the imaginary line you drew in your head would have finished. Doesn’t have to be perfect, but it will help you with the perspective. Now, just draw a curve for the read wheel arch between that line, and the bottom of the door. Phew, We just need a small, thin oval inside the wheel arch, extending out beneath the bottom edge. Finally a curve down, across, and bark up and round to the edge for the bottom of the tyre. You are brilliant!

23) Now the roofline. Go from just above the left hand top edge f the windscreen. Curve gently upward , but then start curving gently downwards where the windscreen does, joining the rear pillar. Ladies and gents – you have a Ford Anglia. Now, if you’re going to do a Harry Potter Anglia. Then you’re done! But I want to make a police car.

24. Make two small upward lines. One from the roof above about the centre of the windscreen, slanting upwards to the right. Do another line, which slants a little more, from above the left hand edge of the mirror. Make a small downwards diagonal going right, then a much steeper one down to the roof line.

25) Join up the lines of the box on the top of the car. Draw a little thin dome on top for the light. You can write the word POLICE on the side , slanting like mine if you like, but you could leave it till later and do it with the brush pen. And that’s it. You’ve drawn the Ford Anglia Police Car. Are you up for painting it? You can use whatever you like. I like watercolours, brush pen and ink fineliners, and that’s what I’m going to show you now.

26) Drawing a police car means I don’t have a great deal of options with regards to colour. Basically, it’s blue and white. This meant going to town on the wheel arch, tyre, and underneath the bumper. I did start with blue for the body panel above the wheel arch, but I allowed the greens, purples and gresy from the wheel arch to bleed into the panel. At this stage don’t worry about getting the true colours right, you just really want to get some varieties of colour in there to give the picture some visual texture. I used a watered brush to just pick up some of the grey from the tire and spread it under the bumper, before adding the yellow immediately beneath the bumper, allowing it to bleed down into the grey.

27) I painted in the bonnet. Believe it or not it’s all the same blue colour, but I waited until it was drying before applying it slightly more strongly below the windscreen and above the radiator. Beneath the bumper started with a thin layer of grey, into which I bled the blue on the left and the green on the right. The blue also bled down into the left hand wheel, which was fine.

28) One obvious thing in this stage is that I started to use a bit of spatter. Just charge your brish with one of the colours you’re using, and tap it onto another brush or pen. I thought a bit of yellow on the bottom of the white door might be effective. I also painted the interior through the windscreen with yellow, into which I bled grey to make the darker edges. I used the same grey to pick out some of the shadow within both headlights, and then watered it down a little more, before using it to paint inside the radiator grille. I did darken the blue in the die a little as well. This was as much as I wanted to do with the watercolour – for the last few stages I would use brush pens.

29) So, the first job with the brush pens was using black to darken the underside of the car, and dark blue as well to make the edges of the darkness less sharply defined, and also to add shadow and definition to the underside of the headlights.

30) Ink in the window seals now. I used a 0.8mm fineliner. I also used a blue brush pen underneath the bumper on top of the grey- keeping it darker than bonnet, but at least giving it a hint of blue colour.

31) Penultimate stage now. I used two different blues on the light at the top. I also inked in the sign on the box beneath the light. At this stage I also inked in the letters on the side of the car with a dark blue brush pen, very lightly applying just the tip of the pen. I drew in the curved vertical lines on the radiator grille and began to shade in the horizontal ones. Just finishing touches left now. 

I applied the tip of my black brush pen to a watery brush and used the resulting grey to darken some parts of the interior. Then just finishing details remained. I drew in the remaining details of the radiator grille, and applied orange to the side lights. I was undecided about the number plate, but in the end went tor inking it in, and I’m glad, because it makes a difference.

That’s it – your finished Anglia. If you followed the instructions, why not post a photograph of your work in the comments.